7 Ways To Foster Team Member Engagement

Team Member Engagement Directly Impacts The Success Of Your Business.

Businesses with engaged employees benefit from having fewer absences, excellent customer service (acknowledged by their clients), stronger internal communication and employees who are generally more enthusiastic about their jobs and, thus, more productive. To help you create the sort of dynamic work environment that team member engagement generates, we put together the seven tips below.

7 Ways To Foster Team Member Engagement:

#1. Talk To Your Team: Communication is a two-way street, but someone has to put the keys in the ignition and get the car started, and that someone has to be a leader. If you want your team members actively communicating with one another, you need to lead by example. Throughout the day, talk to them about what is happening in the business, about work in the team and about their personal interests.

#2. Get To Know Your Team: Developing a rapport with your employees works in tandem with talking to them. By genuinely getting to know your team members -- their likes, their dislikes, their passions, their goals -- you will gain a better understanding of what makes them tick, and in the process help them feel like unique individuals as opposed to human-shaped representations of their job function.

#3. Make Time For Your Team: As a leader at your business, it is important that you are available to the members of your team when they need you. If you come off as unavailable or detached from the main body of your team, you will create a barrier between them and you. This will lead to a serious disconnect and inevitable breakdown in communication, directly affecting your business' success.

#4. Promote Fun At Work: "Fun" in this instance has less to do with fun in the sense of "fun and games" and more to do with employees being enthusiastic about their jobs. When employees are having fun at the workplace, they are considerably more productive and contribute to a positive energy that influences the success of your business.

#5. Actively Support Your Team: Feeling supported by the rest of the team and the leaders at a business is an important aspect of team member engagement. Said leaders need to look for ways to help their employees grow and attain their business goals in order to combat complacency and prevent employees from growing disheartened with their job and their role in the company.

#6. Provide The Tools They Need: If you want your team members to perform at the top of their game and deliver the very best they can produce, you need to supply them with the right tools for their respective jobs. Expecting employees to make due with what they have in essence cripples them, and can leave employees feeling that their job is far more of a struggle than it ought to be.

#7. Be Flexible: Ruling with an iron-fisted "my way or the highway" mentality stifles growth and development and creates a static, unchanging, complacent work environment -- the antithesis of innovation and design (read: success). Strong leaders know when to admit their weakness and when to concede to employees who may know more about something than they do, in the process engaging the employee by acknowledging their experience and relative expertise.

Executive Summary: Team member engagement, for any business -- no matter what you do or what your size -- is absolutely crucial. As a leader at your business, it falls on your shoulders to take the first steps towards engaging your team members. It may take a bit of effort, but in the end, the payoff is immeasurable. Engagement motivates employees, creates a work atmosphere charged with excitement and energy, better communication and so much more. Bottom line: Team member engagement improves your business in every way.

6 Tips For Business Networking

Networking Requires A Plan Of Action.

To help you become better at networking in the business world, you need to put some effort into the process -- even if you are uncomfortable with engaging new people. Having a clearly defined plan for networking certainly helps alleviate such discomfort. To that end, we have listed below six tips to help you overcome your fear of networking and help you put a networking plan in place.

6 Tips For Networking In The Business World:

Tip #1. Network Genuinely: When attempting to build trust, credibility and business relationships, you need to present yourself in a genuine light. You should only attend networking events if you genuinely wish to help others. If you attend networking events or situations with the intention to sell, you will come off as self-serving and fail to connect with other attendees, wasting your time and theirs in the process.

Tip #2. Define Your Goals: Do not arbitrarily select a networking event. Before you go anywhere, take a moment to figure out what you are hoping to accomplish through networking. Different networking events have different focuses, like education or database growth. Knowing what aligns with your goals is the key to getting the most out of networking.

Tip #3. Visit Multiple Groups: Like when buying a car, settling on the first networking group you stumble across is usually unwise. We recommend visiting several groups to get a feel for each group's unique flavor and to see what they can offer you and you can offer them. Once you find a networking group that works for you, give it your full attention.

Tip #4. Ask Open-Ended Questions: Successful networking hinges upon your ability to ask the people you interact with a series of open-ended questions, as opposed to simple yes/no questions. If you rely solely on yes/no questions, your networking efforts will fail to encourage any sort of meaningful dialogue. Furthermore, an open-ended question conveys more sincere interest in someone.

Tip #5. Understand Your Business: In order to maximize your networking efforts, you must have a clear understanding of what makes your business unique. These differences, coupled with a concrete understanding of what your competitors offer, are the factors that will most interest the people with whom you network.

Tip #6. Follow-up With People: After successfully connecting with someone who might benefit from your business' products and/or services, you need to follow-up with them through drip marketing campaigns. But don't just call them and ask, "So, are you ready to do some business together." Building trust, credibility and brand recognition takes time. By taking this approach, you will not only put more prospects in the sales funnel but also help nurture your future sales.

Executive Summary: Successful networking requires genuine effort and a plan of action. In fact, smart business leaders and winning salespeople have one thing in common: They all attend networking events in an effort to expand their database of prospective buyers and referral sources. More importantly, they use networking events as a means to connect with people and establish mutually beneficial relationships.

6 Ways To Improve Your Communication At Work

By Improving Your Communication Skills, You Will Improve Your Productivity And Morale.

One of the biggest things that affect communication is our perceptions of others and their perceptions of us. Believing that someone doesn't "get" you or that you don't "get" them leads to poor relationships. This is why it is crucial to actively strive to improve your communication skills. To assist you in doing this, we have provided below a list of six ways to improve these skills. These tips will not only strengthen your communication skills, but also improve other aspects of your work life in the process.

6 Ways To Improve Your Communication Skills At Work:

#1. Get To Know People: When people are hesitant or uncomfortable speaking to someone, communication breaks down or fails to take off altogether. Being comfortable around your coworkers is key to developing a healthy environment for communication, and the only way to get comfortable around others is to get to know them. So occasionally ask about your coworkers' lives and listen attentively when they respond so they stop being a relative stranger and start being a unique person you know.

#2. Encourage Others To Talk: Listening attentively, effectively, is just as much an active skill as speaking. The talented listener knows how to give 100% of their attention to a speaker and how to mentally flag key words and phrases to recall later. Furthermore, listening is the fastest way to get to know someone. Most people enjoy discussing their lives -- you just need to ask the right questions to get them to start sharing things with you.

#3. Create A Shared Sense Of Purpose: A lack of team unity can lead to a breakdown in team structure. Instead of being on the same page, you will find one person micromanaging or dominating the flow of the project while others sit idly by and let the project come together without giving more direct input. The trick to developing a shared sense of purpose is to find a way to utilize everyone's best skills on the project -- to tailor each aspect of the project to a specific team member's strength.

#4. Get Involved, Stay Involved: When you find yourself working on a team project or sharing work, make sure you remain actively involved as opposed to holding off on your own and completing your share of the work in a vacuum. Regular communication during a major project will also help foster a more communicative atmosphere in general, and will show others how you are a team player invested in the project's successful completion.

#5. Follow-up Sooner, Not Later: If you are even slightly uncertain about something communicated to you, follow-up on the matter immediately. The reason as to why is simple: Working under assumptions is working under a serious communication disconnect. It is better to make sure, to the point of pestering, that you are on the same page as someone else than it is assume you know what needs to be done only to find out, in the end, you were mistaken.

#6. Don't Take Things Personally: Part of operating within the business world is learning to detach yourself from taking professional criticisms, disagreements, different perspectives and different ideas personally. If you're the kind of person to let bumps in the road cause you to lose control of your emotions, you will quickly find yourself struggling to communicate effectively with others. Worse, others will be less inclined to communicate with you.

Executive Summary: The benefits of improving your communication skills at the workplace are numerous, from team projects moving more smoothly to others treating you as a team player. More importantly, communication at the workplace is an essential component to any business' success, so do your part by getting to know your colleagues, learning to be an attentive listener and employing the rest of the tips listed above to help establish a stronger, more effective workplace.

Dealing With Stress Will Not Only Improve Your Work Life, But Your Home Life Too.

The thing about stress at work is that it feeds off itself and can seep into your personal life if you aren't careful. Similarly, stress from home can be brought over to work. But learning to manage and cope with stress can bring you a higher degree of peace.

7 Tips For Dealing With Stress At The Workplace:

Tip #1. Start Off On The Right Foot: Too many of us wake up and rush off to work, eating junk food bought from a coffee shop drive-thru window as we speed towards the work day. This hastened behavior frames our mental state for the rest of the day. Instead of rushing about, take a few minutes out of your morning for yourself. Start by sitting down at a quiet place and enjoying a relaxing moment. Whether you read the paper, sip some coffee or eat a nutritious breakfast doesn't matter -- just find time for yourself.

Tip #2. Be Comfortable: How comfortable you are directly affects your stress level. Make sure you pick comfortable clothes for work, even if you are required to dress up. Sure work clothes are designed to make you look professional, but that does not mean you need to sacrifice comfort in the process. Another important comfort is your desk chair. Office workers spend the majority of their time seated, and an uncomfortable chair can lend itself to back pains and sore muscles.

Tip #3. Prepare For The Day's Mistakes: While you should certainly strive to perform to the best of your ability, it is important to remember that mistakes are inevitable and part of the workday. We all drop the ball from time to time. That's why when mistakes crop up, we must be able to roll with the punches and own up to our mistakes. Otherwise, the occasional hiccup will become a splinter in your mind, stressing you out for weeks on end.

Tip #4. Avoid Conflict: Interpersonal dynamics affect not only your emotional health, but your physical health as well. As great as it is to foster relationships in the workplace, it helps to avoid being too candid about your opinions on topics such as religion, politics or sociological issues. If you can, have a standing agreement with your coworkers to avoid these topics if you know discussing them will only cause undue fuss. This way the workplace remains peaceful.

Tip #5. Get Out Of The Office: Unfortunately, most office environments lend themselves to a sedentary lifestyle, which combined with poor diet and lack of exercise can profoundly affect workers both mentally and physically. We recommend getting out of the office during your lunch break to stretch your legs and get a mental break from your surroundings. Take a walk around the building or use gym facilities if they are available. Whatever you choose, just getting out of the office briefly will definitely help you center yourself.

Tip #6. Manage Trying To Be Perfect: Striving for perfection is admirable, but obsessing over perfection will only cause more harm than good. Perfectionists tend to spend so much time fussing over little things that it winds up costing valuable time, or may cause them to drop the ball altogether. As mentioned in Tip #3, mistakes are unavoidable. The more you obsess over avoiding mistakes the more your stress level will skyrocket, causing you to overlook something and stress out even more.

Tip #7. Stay Focused And Organized: Multitasking enjoyed a brief moment in the spotlight, but is now regarded as more ineffective than efficient. Doing an adequate job on several things at once doesn't trump doing a great job on one or two things. Furthermore, splitting your attention means piling more on your plate, and the higher that pile grows the higher your stress raises.

Executive Summary: Just because stress is a part of our everyday lives does not mean we can't have more control over stress than it has over us. While scientists have yet to develop a cure-all for stress, there are some practical and easy ways you can manage stress. Starting your day off on the right foot and getting out of the office briefly, along with the other tips outlined above, will put you well on your way to a less stressed work life.